


shatterglass

by aw_writing_no, badacts



Series: deus ex machina [2]
Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Brainwashing, Human Experimentation, Hydra (Marvel), M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, SHIELD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2020-09-23 23:35:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20348665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aw_writing_no/pseuds/aw_writing_no, https://archiveofourown.org/users/badacts/pseuds/badacts
Summary: It's been six months. Steve has a new job, Natasha has questions, and Bucky has a very spotty memory. Those things are more related than anyone other than Clint Barton can explain - wherever the hell he is now.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't have the time to fit all the plot I wanted in my WHRBB, so here's the sequel, with more lovely art by aw_writing_no. More intrigue! More romance! More Clint-being-a-badass! More Bucky and Steve being bestest friends, AND Natasha!!!
> 
> Thanks to Michelle, and also to @thesinisstronginthisone for beta-ing.
> 
> I'm NERDILY excited about this fic :D enjoy! xx

* * *

Bucky Barnes is back from the dead. 

And by ‘the dead’, he means the desert. And by ‘the desert’, he means a hole-in-the-ground secret facility that he came out of half-mangled but alive.

“You’re one tough sonofabitch,” one of his surgeons had told him while he was still in Landstuhl, admiring. “Constitution of a horse. You’re gonna do great.”

‘Great’ was optimistic - Bucky is a one-armed ex-POW with PTSD and a dangerous dependence on painkillers. However, he’s still got three good limbs, and he’s got Steve Rogers onside. It could be much worse.

After his three months in hospital, he spent two months sitting on his ass in his mom’s house resenting her for the help he needed just to get out of bed in the morning. That was the worst part by far - the improvement came when Steve, fresh off the plane with his honourable discharge all signed and filed, took one look at him and said, “I found us a place in Bed Stuy, the landlord is showing us around tomorrow morning.”

So Bucky, who would follow that idiot anywhere, put on pants and shoved his feet into his still-laced sneakers and went on a tour of their new apartment. Now, a month later, he’s been sitting on his ass enough to get bored as fuck, so he’s taken up _ hobbies_.

“Therapy isn’t a hobby,” Steve says without looking up from his sketchbook.

Bucky puts his backpack down on the kitchen table next to him, gentle enough he doesn’t jar Steve’s pen. Then he puts down the book of sudoku puzzles Sam gave him by Steve’s elbow.

Steve looks. “You don’t even like maths.”

“I can count up to nine though,” Bucky replies. “Who’s that?”

Steve jerks a little bit, folding in on himself as he realises Bucky is trying to look over his shoulder. “Uh-”

“New boyfriend?” Bucky asks. “No, wait - Disney rang, they want you to work on their Robin Hood remake.” The guy in the drawing isn’t fully drawn in, but the stance and the bow clearly mark him as an archer.

“No,” Steve says, slapping the sketchbook shut. “SHIELD offered me a job.”

Bucky blinks. “What?”

“SHIELD. Strategic Homeland-”

“I know what SHIELD is, asshole. Why’d they want you?”

Steve gives him a dry look. “Maybe they read my service record.”

“Maybe they like people who can’t follow orders worth a damn,” Bucky translates. The Medal of Honour looks pretty good on a resume, but it’s probably not what an outfit like SHIELD is looking for. “You gonna take it?”

“I...don’t know.” Steve looks down at the sketchbook in his lap, frowning. “Kinda thought I was done with that life.”

“Why? You’ve still got both your arms,” Bucky chirps, like that’s something either of them can fuckin’ joke about. The fact that bringing it up makes his stomach turn and Steve’s face fall hasn’t stopped him yet, though. 

He didn’t used to be this much of an asshole.

“Thought maybe I was done with fighting,” Steve admits. Bucky, to his own credit, doesn’t laugh in his face.

“Pal, you’re never going to be _ done _ with fighting,” he says. “That’s not the kind of person you are. But you don’t gotta do it that way if you don’t want to.”

“Are you suggesting we go back to bar fights? Like old times?”

Bucky rolls his eyes. “Calling ‘em ‘bar fights’ is pretty generous. But no, actually. You’re smart - why not go back to school, do law or some shit? Go into politics? Those smarmy bastards love fighting. You just gotta practice doing it with your words and not your fists.”

“That’s real sweet, Buck. But I don’t think I’m cut out for that,” Steve says, though he’s smiling now.

“You always wanted to change the world,” Bucky says. “I don’t know SHIELD is going to be the way to do that.”

“Maybe. Maybe not,” Steve says. “What about you? Any grand plans? Democratic primaries 2023?”

“We’re talking about you, not me,” Bucky diverts. “But if you gotta know, I was considering adding another group at the VA to my weekly schedule. How’s that for grand plans?”

Of course, Steve looks fucking _ proud _. Here Bucky is, doing the bare minimum to keep himself from falling into a pit of oxy and booze, and Steve acts like that’s some kind of achievement.

“Sounds great, Buck,” he says, still smiling. “If you want me to come-”

“If you want to chat Wilson up, do it on your own time,” Bucky interrupts, because that’s his MO now: distract, redirect, do whatever the hell he can to change the subject. 

He always used to be able to talk all day and never say anything important. That hasn’t changed. The thing that has is the accompanying fatigue, like he’s run five miles rather than had a ten minute conversation with his brother, and the clever little lies he tells Steve even when he knows it’s pointless.

Steve has more right than anyone to know Bucky’s secrets, and is more capable than anyone of seeing straight through him. Plus, he pulled Bucky out of the hole that he can’t really remember, knows more of the details of what happened to Bucky than he himself does. So, really, the lies aren’t that clever, aren’t little at all, and are a waste of time and energy. 

And, if Bucky stops, everything inside him is going to pour out uncontrollably, black and sick like rot.

It’s been six months. Apparently, it gets easier. Bucky’s not sure how long it’ll be before he stops feeling fragile.

* * *

Bucky doesn’t remember much of his time as a prisoner. Most of it, in fact.

He had a whole lot of psychiatrists frowning over him for a while, using words like ‘repression’, even going so far as to claim he was pretending that he didn’t remember so he didn’t have to talk about it. He didn’t take that so well.

Sam, when they first met, had shrugged. “I’m just a counsellor, not a doctor, but I can tell you there’s all kinds of shit we don’t know about how brains work. So, yours reacted a little differently to most - so what? Maybe you’re a scientific marvel, Barnes. You ever think of that?”

Bucky had, more or less, politely told him where to shove it. But he’d stuck with Sam, too.

It might have seemed unfair then, that, in the absence of memories, his subconscious seems to make shit up to torture him while he sleeps. Good thing Bucky abandoned the concept of ‘fair’ as a dumb fantasy a while back.

He dreams that he’s drowning. That he’s sinking in dark water, so cold he can’t feel it except for how it burns in his lungs. And that would be fine, if they didn’t _ keep pulling him out _.

He dreams that he’s fighting for his life, blood coppery in his mouth, divorced from his body so completely that he can’t quite keep a grip on his attacker’s face.

He dreams of someone running a knife across his forearms, shallow at first, and then deeper. And that he can’t feel it even as it goes too deep, through muscle and fascia and into bone. That he’s pouring his life out over the table in skeins of red, except it’s not a table, it’s a chair, and there’s someone standing over him, throwing him into shadow with the breadth of their shoulders, the feathery stretch of wings -

And then he wakes up. He thinks his head should hurt, but it doesn’t. It doesn’t, it doesn’t, it _ doesn’t- _

“...easy, Buck,” Steve murmurs to him, not close enough to be within reach. “I’ve got you.”

“This is your fault,” Bucky groans, shivering in his sweat-soaked sheets. “Drawing Cupid.”

“Cupid?” Steve asks, moving in now that Bucky’s talking to carefully peel him free. “Oh. You mean Robin Hood.”

“Yeah, if Robin Hood’s a fucking angel,” Bucky mutters, pushing himself upright. It’s already fading, now he’s awake - all he can picture is blood and feathers. His heart is still beating out of his chest.

Steve is frowning at him. “You with me?”

“You think you’d be getting this charming conversation if I was still asleep?” Bucky asks, pushing Steve backwards gently so he can get out of bed. He bundles up the bottom sheet and throws it into the corner to wash later. His mattress can air for now - he won’t be getting any more sleep tonight. “What the hell time is it?”

“Four,” Steve replies. He always looks concerned on nights like this, but there’s a new layer of what-the-fuckery lurking there that Bucky isn’t in love with.

“Did I - did I do something?” Bucky asks, because he has strikingly clear memories of splitting Steve’s lip when Steve woke him up wrong those first few days they lived here. There’s no blood, but -

Steve jerks, his expression clearing. “No, of course not. You’re fine. _ I’m _ fine.”

He’s vehement with it, which is pretty endearing. Bucky nods, and offers, “Coffee?”

“Sure,” Steve says, so they have coffee, and Steve pretends to be gently disapproving of Bucky smoking out the window when he really doesn’t give a damn, and Bucky makes him wait until it’s light out to go for his run because they didn’t survive the desert for Steve to die at the hands of a shitty New York driver. Rinse, repeat: their new normal.

* * *

To absolutely no one’s surprise, Steve takes the job with SHIELD. Of course, the first Bucky knows about it is answering the door to the world’s most terrifying redhead.

“Hey, soldier,” she says, all shining charm. “You gonna invite me in?”

And look, Bucky has done plenty of stupid shit related to beautiful women. That was in his past life, though, and in this one he’s a paranoid bastard.

“Tempting,” he says, with a smile that takes hers and raises it by several teeth, “But I’m gonna need to see a warrant first.”

She laughs. “Barnes, right?”

“Who’s asking?”

She offers him her hand, small with flawlessly painted nails. “Natasha Romanoff. I’m with SHIELD.” It’s only when they’re palm to palm that Bucky feels the roughness of her callouses against his. Matching. “Is Rogers in?”

Bucky looks back over his shoulder to check the clock on the wall. “If you wait about five minutes, he will be.”

Natasha nods. “You’re going to make me wait out on the doorstep, right?”

“Oh, definitely,” Bucky says with a smile, and then closes the door in her face.

* * *

“Buck, this is Natasha,” Steve says, approximately six minutes later. Bucky could set his clock by the guy. “Natasha, this is Bucky Barnes.”

“We met,” Natasha says, still smiling. Steve blinks like he’s casting his mind back over the many times they could have met each other and absolutely did not, before realising and giving Bucky a _ look_.

Bucky returns it tenfold. If he wanted Bucky to let her inside, then he should have at least mentioned that she might be turning up. It’s amazing, the allowances he can make for Bucky when it comes to himself, when he expects Bucky to be just the same as he used to be when it comes to other people.

On second thought - maybe that’s why Bucky is pissed.

“She never did show me that warrant,” he says with a grin. “So, should I leave? Is this a ‘if I told you, I’d have to kill you’ scenario?”

“I think he has a skewed idea of what we do at SHIELD,” Natasha tells Steve, and then to Bucky. “Actually, I just need some paperwork from both of you to get things finalised.”

Bucky feels his brows rise. “Finalised?”

The other two share a look. Then Natasha says, “You’re Rogers’ next of kin, yes?”

“Obviously,” Bucky replies, which at least makes Steve quirk a smile. 

“Great,” Natasha replies, digging into the satchel hanging over one of her shoulders. Somehow, Bucky suspects it doesn’t belong to her. She hangs him a sheet of paper. “Fill this in, and then I can leave before you two have it out over Rogers’ new job.”

Bucky looks at the paperwork then says, “You got a pen?” When she hands him one, he takes it to the table and sits. It’s a pain in the ass writing on paper when you don’t have a spare arm to steady it, but he’s had practice. Losing an arm means a lot of paperwork, and not everyone is conscientious enough to provide a clipboard.

“Buck,” Steve says, sitting across from him with his thicker sheaf of paper. 

“SHIELD works faster than you,” Bucky cuts him off. “It’s fine. I already had personal proof that they’re efficient.” After all, it was apparently SHIELD agents who helped Steve in and out of where Bucky’d been kept.

There’s a pointed silence over his head that sounds like an agreement to manage him. Bucky ignores it.

The form is straightforward enough that Steve could have filled it out himself. Bucky says, “You know this guy once pissed off our superiors and the heads of your entire agency just for one soldier, right?”

“‘Just for one soldier’, huh? I don’t know, Barnes. You seem like a real charmer. And I heard the saying _ is _ ‘no man left behind’.”

“What’s SHIELD’s? ‘For the greater good’?”

Steve looks up at that, eyes wide. Natasha grins. “We’re not really the sort of organisation to have a catchphrase.”

Bucky scribbles down the last of his details, then leans back in his chair. “Fair. I figured you guys would be paperless, though. No money in the budget for StarkPads?”

“Maybe I think you boys are just old fashioned.”

“I think there’s more on your agenda than that. Reckon you’re a little highly ranked for this kinda work.” He smirks up at her. “Satisfied?”

“Well, he said you were fucked up, not stupid.”

Steve chokes. Bucky laughs. “He didn’t call me fucked up.”

“I extrapolated,” Natasha says, sweet as pie. “He did you discredit, though. You’re way more fun than he made you out to be.”

He’s not, but he can see how this kind of woman would find him to be. He leans back in his seat and pushes the paper across the table to her. “You’re welcome.”

She picks it up and skims it before tucking it away in her satchel. “Thanks for your time.”

He offers her a sloppy salute. “I live to serve. Hey, Stevie, you finished?” He sees Natasha mouth _ Stevie _with faint incredulity. The guy probably grew out of the nickname around the time he hit six feet tall, but Bucky hasn’t let that stop him yet.

“All done,” Steve says easily, handing his own paperwork back to Natasha. “Thank you, Ms Romanoff. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Natasha leaves in a cloud of expensive perfume, letting herself out. Bucky watches her go, and he’s willing to bet she knows it.

Steve stands up to pour himself a glass of water. He says, “You okay with this?”

“You going out in the field without me?” Bucky replies. “Never. But my issues aren’t a good reason for you to avoid doing what you want, never mind what you need.”

“I’d do anything for you, though. Including work a desk job.”

Bucky laughs tiredly. “We can’t _ both _be the self-sacrificing idiot in this relationship. And you already got your turn out in the desert.”

“Buck-”

“Save it, pal. I’m kidding. Knowing that you’re out there doing what you were made to do, helpin’ people - that’s more than enough for me.”

Steve looks at him for a long moment and then nods, just once, jaw squared up with emotion. “Okay.”

* * *

Things change, after that. It’s not that Bucky didn’t expect to find suddenly being on the outside a significant shift - it’s that he really didn’t think he wouldn’t care this much. 

Steve tells him as much as he can, but his work is highly classified and he’s suddenly something of a jetsetter. Bucky doesn’t even know what timezone he’s in, part of the time. He doesn’t resent Steve for the travel, or for keeping secrets, couldn’t if he tried, especially after he gave his not-worth-much permission, but it’s hard to not feel like he’s untrustworthy, or perhaps just not worthy in general.

He doesn’t like being left behind.

“You know,” Natasha says one day, over coffee, “You could probably get a position with SHIELD.”

Bucky gives her a deadpan look. “Secretary with the slowest rate of words-per-minute in the country?”

“I think they call them personal assistants now,” she says, like that’s in any way relevant. “We need more trainers, you know. You don’t have to be in the field to be useful.”

_ Useful_.

Bucky, teeth bared, bites back. “I don’t have to be goddamn _ useful _.”

There’s a split-second where Natasha pauses, and Bucky realises that he’s managed to surprise her. She says, “No. You don’t.”

He turns his back on her with the fragile excuse of needing to fill his only-half-empty mug. He’s not really sure why that rubs him the wrong way. Sure, people love to imply that a person’s worth is tied to their usefulness - he’s heard Steve’s treatises on the evils of capitalism before - but no one’s ever tried that on him. And he knows she doesn’t mean it like that. There’s useful in a financial sense, and useful in a saving-the-world sense, and SHIELD is far closer to the latter than some rich Wall Street fucks who think he’s useless now will ever be.

It’s the word. Like catching a hangnail, the quick slip of a shallow knife wound - sharp, then gone again. Like a lot of things are for Bucky, these days.

“Sorry,” Natasha says, a little soft. 

Bucky rubs his forehead, then turns to top her up with the coffee pot, too. She takes it cut heavily with cream and sugar, far sweeter than even her fakest persona probably smiles. “So’m I. Anyway, I don’t think I’m cut out for that life anymore.”

“That’s what Steve said, too,” she says. “And yet.”

“Me ‘n’ Stevie ain’t the same,” Bucky replies, which used to be a mild overestimation of their individual characters, almost a lie, but is now a vast chasm of an understatement.

“He’s good to the core,” Natasha agrees. “It’s fucking annoying.”

And that’s what Bucky likes about her. The two of them have a shared recognition that Steve, for all his many virtues, particularly his stubborn belief in human betterment, is an uncharming bastard who makes everyone in proximity wish they could live up to his expectations. Which is fine, unless you’re like her and Bucky, who maybe have a chance at _doing_ good, but will never _be _good again.

There’s a lot he doesn’t know about Natasha, in terms of specifics, but like recognises like.

“I’m done with it,” Bucky says. “The only thing I can teach anyone is how to survive six months in a cell, and I don’t even remember most of it. So unless SHIELD is looking for a one-armed barista, they can keep their job offers to themselves.”

“I’ll ask if they’re looking for a one-armed archivist. We’ve got a lot of old paper records, you know,” she replies. “You don’t remember?”

Bucky shrugs. “Some.”

It’s all mixed up in his head, is the thing. It felt like he was there for years, or just days, and it’s all stuck together in an order that can’t be real, with faces that blur and voices that get him when he’s sleeping. He’s not even entirely sure what he does remember is real - Russian, and people with American accents, and weapons that haven’t been military issue for a few hundred years or so.

“Huh,” Natasha says, and nothing else about it.

Sam isn’t that polite. He pokes and prods at Bucky until he’s exhausted, and it’s right, it’s good, but it _ hurts_.

“You can’t deal with the shit that you’ve actually repressed the hell out of,” is his constant refrain. He means the surgery, the hospital, waking up and being terribly, terribly afraid for reasons Bucky still doesn't recall. “It comes back to get you, sooner or later.”

“I’m dealing,” is Bucky’s usual muttered response. Sam never denies it, either.

“Sure. You’re still alive, right?” he says today, as though that’s any kind of achievement.

“I’d hate to waste the nice doctor’s time like that,” Bucky quips.

Sam shrugs. “Good a reason as any. I’ve always preferred spite, though.” Then, he grins.

That’s the real reason Bucky likes Sam. He’s just like Steve, except with a morbid sense of humour that’s really on Bucky’s level.

So, yeah, Bucky is dealing with it. He’s not doing great, and there’s a bit of spite involved in it, sure, but he’s dealing.

He’s dealing great, right up until Steve calls him from a strange number and says, breathless, “I think I can get you a new arm.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your girl's on lockdown and has been WRITING. She has not, however, been editing, a fact that will surprise no one who has ever read her writing.

“A  _ what _ ?” Bucky demands, and it’s closer to a shriek than he would probably admit to.

“An arm!” Steve says. He’s kind of muttering, like he doesn’t want to be overheard, though it sounds like he’s struggling to stick to it. “A prosthetic.”

“What in the goddamn  _ hell _ are you talking about?” Bucky’s not a good candidate for a prosthetic, having lost his entire arm at the shoulder joint. There’s no elbow to bend, not even a stump to attach to. Ugly, but necessary to save his life. 

“I met - someone,” Steve hisses. “He’s developing some neurologically-integrated prosthetics. They’re looking for some patients for a trial, and you’d be perfect.”

“You  _ met _ someone?” Bucky asks, astounded, and then, “My brain is swiss cheese already, and I already know I’m no good for prosthetics. I think ‘perfect’ is probably stretching it.”

“You’re an officer who got injured in the line and spent time as a POW -  _ that _ kind of perfect,” Steve says. “Besides, this guy - I think he’s probably the type to like the difficult cases.”

“Wow,” Bucky says. “So he’s fucking you, right? No, wait - he  _ wants _ to fuck you.”

Steve chokes. “That’s not-”

“Whatever, don’t care, not interested,” Bucky says, and hangs up. He bangs his cellphone against the wall three times in a row, but stops himself because he smashes it. “Fuckfuckfuck.”

It vibrates in his hand, and he fumbles to decline it. When it starts to ring  _ again _ \- stubborn bastard of a man - Bucky accepts the call and raises it to his ear, sighing.

“Come and meet him,” Steve says, before Bucky can get a word out. “He’ll be able to explain it better than me.”

“It’s gonna be a waste of all our time,” Bucky points out, mostly fatalistically. 

“Improving your life is never going to be a waste of my time,” Steve replies, entirely honest and almost enough to make Bucky either laugh or cry. 

“Ugh,” he says feelingly, and then, “ _ Fine." _

* * *

Of course, meeting Steve’s New Friend - which is how Bucky has been referring to him, eyebrow-wiggle and everything - means leaving the familiar environs Bucky has been haunting for the last few months. 

They can drive in Steve’s requisitioned work car, which is an SUV with blacked out windows that looks like it should belong to either a dictator or a drug dealer. It’s still a hellish trip full of terrible traffic and Steve’s muttered cursing at other drivers, followed by them pulling into an underground parking lot prompted by a fake British butler.

Because Steve’s New Friend is Tony fucking Stark. And of course he has a fake British butler AI running his tower.

Bucky doesn’t fall out of the car and kiss the ground, but it’s only because he’s feeling a touch out-of-the-frying-pan-into-the-fire. There’s something about the fluorescent-lit concrete of the basement lot sparking up his brain, and he doesn’t need to remember shit to guess why that might be the case.

“Mister Barnes?” a woman’s smooth voice asks.

Bucky twitches, head jerking up. The woman in question would be taller than him even if she was wearing flats, which she isn’t. Her suit is snow white and cut sharp enough to make a man bleed. Bucky, who is wearing sweats and hasn’t washed his hair in a few days, says, “Uh. Ma’am?”

“I’m Pepper Potts,” she introduces. “Tony would have come to meet you, but he’s finishing up a meeting and I wouldn’t let him leave.”

“Hi,” Bucky says stupidly. “That’d be great.” He knows who Pepper Potts is. He mostly knows that if he’d known he’d be meeting  _ her _ today, he would have put on jeans, at least. Maybe cologne. 

“Steve, always a pleasure. Mister Barnes is in capable hands, if you have other things to do,” Ms Potts says. Her voice, cooly professional, warms up a little. Such is the power of Steve Rogers.

Steve doesn’t even need Bucky’s pleading look, simply smiling his broad aw-shucks smile. “Thanks, Ms Potts, but I’ll stick around.”

“It’s Pepper, remember?” Ms Potts says with a smile, gesturing them to the elevator. “Let’s head up.” Bucky gives it what is probably a slightly wild look but follows - he’s not in love with tight spaces, but he can cope with them. He shoves himself into a corner, allowing Steve and Ms Potts to stand together and make smalltalk about the energy that powers Stark Tower.

“We have several floors dedicated to R&D laboratories, but this is something of a personal project for Tony,” Ms Potts says, pressing her palm to a shining black panel in the elevator wall until it flashes green. “Which is to say that we’re going to his private lab, not one of the SI ones. We have fairly strict security.” 

“Welcome, Ms Potts,” the creepy AI says over hidden speakers. Bucky jumps.

“Say your name and smile for the camera,” Ms Potts says, flicking her fingers at the top corner of the elevator over the door.

“Steve Rogers,” Steve says immediately with a grin.

“Welcome, Captain Rogers,” the AI replies.

“Uh, Bu - James Barnes,” Bucky says. Christ his mouth is dry. He hates all of this.

“Welcome, Sergeant Barnes.” The door slips open soundlessly, admitting them into the open lobby of what looks like a living space three times bigger than their entire apartment. There’s a sunken seating area and a bar, all looking out over central Manhattan. It’s a long way down, by the looks.

“Come through,” Ms Potts beckons, leading them to one side and back down another set of stairs. Her palm print flashes them through a glass door into what looks like a garage on steroids. As the door cracks open, the music - something hard-rock and blaring - cuts off. “Tony?”

“One second!” a male voice says from somewhere out of view. It sounds muffled and metallic, like Stark has his head in a bucket. “Ow.”

“Five minutes and he’s already into something,” Ms Potts sighs, though it definitely sounds fond. “I’ll leave you both in his competent hands. Nice to meet you, Sergeant.”

“You too,” Bucky manages stupidly. He’s sort of trying to look everywhere at once, but he thinks he smiles at her before she goes back up the stairs. He mutters out of the corner of his mouth, “Hey, Stevie-”

Steve is turning to him, already looking concerned, which is when the same voice as before exclaims, “Hey! Captain, how’s it going? And here’s your matching sergeant, looking good-”

Bucky looks at Tony Stark, and everything in his brain - all the overstimulated pulsing of his thoughts and the thick stress-adrenaline - it all goes quiet.

Stark’s of a height with him, wearing suit slacks and an unbuttoned dress shirt over a white vest. Their eyes meet. Stark’s are brown and thick-lashed. His expression is bright and welcoming. His mouth is moving and he holds out a hand for Bucky to shake, which he takes automatically.

And then everything - slips.

* * *

“Hey.”

He’s hyperventilating. It  _ hurts _ .

“Hey. Doctor Jekyll.”

“Steve?” It grinds out of his chest.

“Not quite.” The voice sounds amused, kind of. Maybe wary. “I sent him out. Apparently he’s not as good at ducking punches as you would think, looking at him. Weird, huh?”

Bucky pushes himself from face-down to fetal, pressing his hand to his face. His head is splitting. He can smell - blood. He retches, but nothing comes up.

“You gonna rip my arms off if I touch you?” The question must be rhetorical, because a hand pries his away from his eyes, cautious but firm. “Because I have to tell you, I’m not going to take it well if you try that again.”

Bucky’s palm meets something warm, covered in cloth, moving. He flinches. “ _ No _ .”

The grip doesn’t let up. “Breathe. If you don’t breathe, you’re gonna puke, and if you puke on my floor I’m gonna make you clean it with your shirt.”

Because Bucky’s going to die if he doesn’t breathe and it seems like his lungs have forgotten how, he stutters some air in in time with the stomach under his palm. He’s shaking so violently his head is rattling against the floor, and it isn’t helping his headache.

“Jesus,” the man - Stark? - mutters under his breath. Fingers slide between Bucky’s skull and the concrete. “Easy there, killer. You’re fine.”

“St-st-st,” Bucky starts, blinking his eyes open enough to look around. He needs -

“Hey, Rogers!” Stark calls, and then there’s quick footsteps and big hands half-lifting him and then he’s tucked firmly into the shelter of Steve’s body. He barks out a sob before he can bite it back.

“Tony, I -” Steve starts over Bucky’s head after a moment, guarded. 

“Don’t sweat it, Cap,” Stark replies breezily, now several feet away. “Take a minute.”

“Are you okay?” Steve asks, this time a little less tense. 

“Nothing a hot bath with epsom salts and a back rub won’t fix,” Stark chirps. “Hey, you know how I got kidnapped that one time?” 

Whether this is aimed at Steve or at Bucky is unclear, but it’s Steve who says, “...yes?”

“Cool, just checking.”

After a while, Bucky manages to steady his breathing and the shakes. In the wake of it, he feels exhausted, and embarrassed, and a little bit frightened.

He’s had panic attacks before, and black outs. Enough to tick all the boxes for PTSD in the psychiatrist handbook. But he’s never felt it quite like that, that calm before the storm. The nothingness which is scarier than anything else.

He pushes himself away from Steve, who lets go as soon as he feels the pressure. Swiping self-consciously at his cheeks, he looks away across the room, only to find a water bottle dangling in front of his face.

“Pep’s always telling me to hydrate,” Stark says, and then there’s the clattering of wheels as he retreats. 

Bucky cracks the lid open, fingers a little rubbery but managing the task, and downs half the bottle. The cold of it helps with the numbness in his chest.

“We should go,” he rasps to Steve without actually looking at him, carefully putting the lid back on. 

There’s a quiet moment over his head which tells him that Steve and Stark are having some kind of silent conversation. It’s Stark who says, nonchalant, “You don’t have to.”

Bucky turns to look at him where he’s perched on a wheeled stool, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, hands clasped like he’s doing an interview or been watching a particularly interesting show. Bucky asks, “Did I hurt you?”

“You tried,” Stark replies. “You’re pretty quick, but I know a fair bit of self-defense. Also, and I don’t mean this rudely, but you  _ do _ only have the one arm.”

“Hadn’t noticed,” Bucky replies. “Help me up.”

“Demanding,” Stark notes, even as Steve moves to do as he asks.

“One arm, remember?” Bucky looks up at Steve as he’s hoisted to his feet and flinches. “ _ Fuck. _ ”

Steve touches his hand subconsciously to what is going to be a wicked black eye. Stark says, “Not good at ducking, see? I really expected better.”

“You’re not helping,” Bucky snarls at him.

“Not the first time I’ve heard that,” Stark replies easily. “I can, however, provide an ice pack.” He scoots across to a nearby workbench and produces an impressively large first aid kit from underneath it.

While he’s distracted rifling through it, Bucky stands on his tiptoes to get a better look at Steve’s face. He mutters, “Fuck. Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Steve replies, and the compassion in his eyes is better than pity, but only barely. “Are you alright?”

“I’d say that’s an obvious ‘hell no’,” Bucky says, and then to Stark, “Throw that here.”

Stark does an underarm toss, the chemical cold pack slapping neatly into Bucky’s palm.

“Cheers,” Bucky says, putting it on Steve’s face until his hand comes up to hold it. “Sorry I blacked out and tried to kill you, or whatever. You gonna sue?” 

“Don’t know what gave you the impression that I’m lawsuit-happy,” Stark says diffidently, doing a slow spin on his stool. “Is it the team of lawyers? Anyway, no. I want to build you a new arm.”

Bucky turns to look him in the eye. “Excuse me?”

Stark flaps his hands in the air. “What? Isn’t that why you came here? Look excited, this is millions of dollars in state of the art tech that I want to graft onto your body  _ for free _ .”

“Putting aside that it sounds like there must be a catch somewhere there, I just  _ blacked out and tried to kill you _ .”

“So what? You’re hardly the first to do that. Do you know how many people have tried to kill me? I’m a cockroach. You tried and ended up a wreck on the floor, and you have a lot more muscles than Justin Hammer.”

“Who the hell is Justin Hammer?” Bucky asks, instead of reminding Stark that he only has the one arm.

Stark grins. “You have no idea how happy it makes me to hear you say that. So. Arm?”

Bucky turns back to Steve. “He’s crazy. Now I see why you like him.”

Steve’s ears pink up, but his expression doesn’t change. Stark is the one who says, still grinning, “I knew you liked me, Rogers.”

Steve, ignoring that, says to Bucky with a careful look, “It’s a great opportunity.”

Well, that’s undisputable. Bucky gets along fine with one arm, and he accepted pretty quick that that was his lot in life now, but there’s no denying that life is a lot easier with two hands.

“Doctor said I’m a bad candidate for a prosthetic,” Bucky says, directed at Stark. “What makes yours special?”

“Neural linkage, and specifically designed reconstructive replacements,” Stark replies immediately. “Prostheses are a vital part of reintegration to normal life for injured soldiers, and SI wants to create the best possible outcomes for disabled vets. We’re working on a bioregenerative cure for spinal injuries too, by the way, but that’s not my area and there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with your spine. Wanna see a diagram?”

“Of a spine?”

“Of the prosthesis, obviously.” Stark flicks his fingers, and the air explodes in light. This time, Steve and Bucky both flinch. Stark doesn’t even seem to notice, pinching and waving until the light corporealises into...an arm. Or, a model arm, slick metal from fingertip to shoulder joint.

“The current skin is surgical steel, but we’re working on likely alloys and also plastic and polymer alternatives,” Stark says, spinning the diagram. Bucky’s no doctor, it looks like an arm to him.

“It’s very...shiny,” Steve notes.

Stark scoffs. “Well, the arbitrator of good taste has spoken. Where’d you get those khakis, Rogers? Amazon.com?”

“I like the metal,” Bucky interrupts Steve’s response. It’s certainly better than the not-actually-skin-colour ‘flesh-tone’ plastic prostheses he’s seen other vets wear. 

“Now,  _ he  _ can stay,” Stark says approvingly. “I don’t know all the details of your injuries, obviously, but Jarvis x-rayed you in the elevator and made up a simulation of the attachment sites and shoulder joint replacement. See?” Steve sputters.

“Of course,” Bucky sighs. He looks across and through the bright blue of the hologram to meet Stark’s gaze square on. “What’s in this for you? I doubt it’s cheap, and the government ain’t gonna give you decent money to supply for soldiers when they can barely be bothered to keep us off the streets.”

Stark seems to consider that, his eyes going distant for a second. Then he shrugs. “Because I can. And because no one else is.” Well, Bucky supposes that’s a good enough reason. “And I hardly need the extra cash.”

“Then why me, specifically?”

“Your friend made a pretty good case for you,” Stark says. “He’s quite charming, the fashion situation aside. Seems to want the best for you. Also, you’d make a pretty decent poster boy yourself. That said, you’d need some testing to make sure you’re suitable for this particular prosthetic. No point attaching a hunk of metal to you if it’s not going to help you, even if it’s a beautifully designed and crafted hunk of metal.”

“And if I’m not?”

“You will be,” Stark replies, glancing away to his holograms. “It’s a moving target, and I like a challenge.”

“For fuck’s safe,” Bucky mutters, and then, “Show me the diagrams again.”

* * *

Stark shows him the diagrams, and then tells him he’s emailing some forms and that Bucky should think about it before signing them. That there’ll be no hard feelings if he decides not to go through with it. Stark kind of seems like a guy who takes rejection poorly, but at least he’s not going to stick a metal arm to Bucky without his permission.

Then Steve leads Bucky out of the workshop and into the elevator and back to the car, where Bucky is so exhausted he crashes out for the whole drive home. It’s not a great idea - he wakes up feeling worse instead of better, hazy and unsettled even in the familiar space. He settles himself into the corner of the couch out of sight of the windows and facing the door.

Steve drops a blanket around his shoulders, but otherwise leaves him alone. It doesn’t occur to Bucky that he might have an ulterior motive for that until Natasha slips onto the couch cushion next to him, stealing a corner of the blanket.

“Ugh,” Bucky says, but doesn’t stop her. She pecks him on the cheek and then half-turns to insert her toes under his thighs.

They’re handling him, and actually Bucky doesn’t mind playing along. The only itch is that he knows Steve called Natasha because he figured Bucky wouldn’t want to look at his bruising face, and it’s not like he’s wrong. 

“How are you doing?” Natasha asks, turning the TV on.

“Swell,” Bucky replies with an eyeroll. 

In response, she flicks him in the ear. Bucky sighs and calls to the kitchen, “You coulda called Sam, you know!”

“What?” Steve replies, which is what he always does when he hears Bucky say something he doesn’t want to answer. The guy has ears like a bat, can hear Bucky having a nightmare down the hall, but he acts like he can’t hear Bucky literally yelling at him through an open doorway.

“I could get him here,” Natasha says, sly and inviting him in on the joke.

“Yeah, really solidify those ‘this is an intervention’ vibes you’re sending,” Bucky replies.

She makes an ugly face at him, and then flicks him again.  _ Hard _ . “Don’t be a bitch. We’re all fucked up, you’re not that special.”

“You’re in a good mood,” Bucky mutters. 

It’s a joke, but as they settle in to watch  _ Legally Blonde _ , he realises that actually, she is in a good mood. He’s not conceited enough to think it has anything to do with him, and not quite curious enough to ask the actual reason, but it’s nice. Nicer than anything going on in his head right now, certainly.

They both crash out somewhere during the movie, which means that Bucky wakes up with a crick in his neck and Natasha’s hair in his mouth. He maneuvres himself out from underneath her, though not carefully enough he doesn’t wake her. She gives him a slit-eyed frown and then snuggles back into the couch cushions with a huff.

There’s soft voices coming from the kitchen, and it takes Bucky a moment to realise that it’s Steve on the phone, not the radio. Considering his clearance level, it’s probably rude to listen in, but Bucky will take what information he can get without making Steve actually tell him anything. He slips into the dark space just outside of the doorway.

“No,” Steve is saying. “He’s fragile. There are - triggers.” He seems to listen for a moment. “Maybe fragile isn’t the right word.”

Well. He’s going to go right ahead and assume this isn’t a work call.

“That’s really not relevant. And it’s not really any of your business. If I thought it was information you needed, I would tell you. No, it means ‘stay away’.” Steve sighs a little as whatever he hears at the other end. “It’s not personal. But if you were me, you’d be doing the same thing. Yeah, sure. Be careful.”

He hangs up, putting his phone down on the kitchen table and scrubbing a hand through his hair. He looks pensive, and his right eye is swollen enough that he clearly hasn’t been icing it adequately.

“Talking to your girlfriend?” Bucky asks, making him jump. Unfortunately, he knows it isn’t an indicator of a guilty conscience, just that he didn’t hear Bucky coming.

“I recognise there are plenty of things I can’t tell you, but I would definitely tell you if I had a girlfriend,” Steve says, mouth quirking. “It was a work call.”

“Ugh, boring.” Bucky goes to the freezer and pulls out a bag of peas. “Seriously, ice your dumb face.”

“You know that it’s wasting perfectly good food to defrost these on my face.”

“Steve, the sole purpose of having frozen peas is for icing black eyes. That’s because no human person would consider eating them.”

“There’s nothing wrong with frozen peas-”

“Peas are bad enough without being stored for six years in the back of someone’s freezer, but if you want to eat them as a midnight snack then be my guest,” Bucky informs him. “After you’ve had them on your face for twenty minutes, obviously. Nat’s taken the couch, I’m going to bed.”

“Okay. Sleep well,” Steve says, and his one visible eye is a perfect guileless blue.

Bucky would be more offended about the secrets, but he blacked out and tried to kill a man today, so he gets it.

* * *

He ends up signing the forms, but that’s only the beginning.

There are so many tests that Steve enlists the help of an extremely bland-looking but pleasant man named Phil Coulson to chauffeur Bucky around the city to appointments. Bucky tries to put his foot down over that - or, as Steve calls it, ‘throws a tantrum’ - but it turns out to be actually impossible to get rid of Coulson.

“Call me Phil,” Coulson says to Bucky when he’s fuming in the backseat of an equally unassuming grey Toyota coupe, having just hung up on an extremely dissatisfying phone call with Steve. He’s still not entirely sure how he ended up in the car. “‘Coulson’ makes me feel like I’m at work.”

Which is approximately when Bucky realises that Coulson is not actually a very persistent professional driver, but a SHIELD agent.

“What’s a SHIELD agent want with me anyway,” he mutters.

“I’m on medical leave and don’t have anything better to do,” Coulson replies, because he also apparently has hearing like a bat. 

“You look alright,” Bucky says, which is admittedly an asshole thing to say. He’s reluctantly intrigued, though. Some kind of weird comradery, he supposes.

“I got impaled,” Coulson says cheerily. “Here we are. Text me when you’re finished and I’ll pull around and meet you.”

“I don’t have your number,” Bucky says, pulling himself out of the car onto the curb.

“I think you’ll find you do,” Coulson replies, and pulls away into the street while Bucky checks his phone and finds that he does have the guy’s number after all. 

So Bucky has Coulson to drive him around, and appointments at Stark Tower and multiple different hospitals for scans and tests and fittings. The worst part is the neurological testing - he’s always had phantom limb pain, but after those sessions he can’t sleep a wink, spends them curled up and retching in his ensuite quiet enough that Steve doesn’t hear.

Afraid that he’ll be labelled unsuitable, that the pleased murmurs and smiles from the doctors and scientists will turn to something else, he doesn’t say anything. Just grins and bears it, chatting and flirting and playing the perfect patient.

Unfortunately, despite appearing to be a narcissistic bimbo who just so happens to have a genius IQ, Tony Stark isn’t actually an idiot. Bucky is biting his cheek bloody during a fitting, trying to act like his nerves aren’t going wild still after yesterday’s trip to neurology, when Stark, who had been observing from the back of the room, says, “Hold up one sec.”

“What?” The chief doctor on the project, a particularly beautiful woman named Helen Cho who just so happens to have no time at all for Stark’s....Starkness, says.

“Mm, give me the room for a minute? Sorry, sorry, I know, annoying billionaire demands to have some say in the project he’s funding,” Stark says, though good-naturedly, as they file out. “Not you.”

“I figured,” Bucky says through his teeth. He’d just been going for his shirt, because this doesn’t seem like a talk he wants to have while stripped from the waist up. He gives up on it, thumping back onto the padded bench he’s been sitting on. So, he’s about to get booted off the program. He figures it’s asking a bit much for him to be  _ graceful _ about it.

Stark looks back at him for a long moment, arms crossed. Then he says, “If I hooked you to a heart monitor right now, it’d be screaming with alarms.”

Bucky doesn’t respond to that. Stark seems unimpressed, but unsurprised. “Alright, soldier boy. The thing is, this?” He gestures between the two of them. “It’s not gonna work out if you aren’t honest with me. And by me, I mean the doctors and everyone else in charge of your care. So, I know you’re very stoic and tough and manly, but either you’re about to have a panic attack, which I would like to know about before you flip out on Helen, or you’re in a shit-ton of pain, which I actually  _ need _ to know about, because it determines that there’s an issue with what’s going on.”

Bucky considers his options here. None of them are looking particularly great, but Stark hasn’t said  _ now get out _ yet.

“I have...some pain,” he says carefully. He can hide things, but he’s not a liar.

“Okay, neat,” Stark says, and then yells, “Helen!”

Doctor Cho reappears in the doorway, her expression several degrees more chilly than it was before. Before she can say something suitably cutting, Stark looks at Bucky and says, “Now, say exactly what you just said to me to Helen.”

Doctor Cho’s expression zeroes in on him instantly. Bucky, dry-mouthed now, repeats himself.

Then she’s at his side. “Explain it to me.” 

So he does, and he doesn’t get kicked off the program, and no one looks at him like he’s an idiot or a failure, and they start talking about changing things so he doesn’t puke from pain once a week. The only thing even vaguely resembling scolding is Doctor Cho saying, “You have a very high tolerance to pain. But this is the rest of your life, and we are aiming to do better than tolerance, yes?”.

It’s better after that, less dread and more tentative hope. So, things are going well. Steve is around more, working from SHIELD headquarters rather than travelling, and Natasha seems to be in their apartment as often as they themselves are. Bucky goes to his appointments and goes to therapy, and then one night when he heads to bed he realises even as he closes the door that there’s someone in his room.

It’s not a sixth sense, or gut instinct. The human brain is actually far more perceptive than the conscious mind, particularly with the training involved in staying alive in a warzone. That’s why Bucky’s hand goes to a knife in his boot.

There, amidst the wind-stirred curtains, there’s a shadow crouched on the sill.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really don't like frozen peas.


End file.
